Single Mother of Three
by Morrigan the Nightmare Queen
Summary: The Planet is nothing if not merciful, and is giving Jenova and her three obsessed sons a chance at a new life and redemption. But it's not going to go exactly as planned, and everyone knows it. Acting human? Being decent? Hah! Not likely. Chap. 2 up!
1. The Frame Scenario Begins

Author's Note: Where did this come from? Myriad sources. I cosplay as Jenova an awful lot, and one of my favorite things to do has been to play her as the downtrodden mother with deadbeat stay-at-home adult sons who won't get a job or a girlfriend or even a gig destroying the world like they _promised_. But at about 4:10 AM on Thursday, April 20th, I was suddenly bushwhacked by the idea in a mega-deluxe form, and the rest (as they say) is history. No Sephiroth, though; once he dies for good, I'm pretty sure he'll find out the truth of it all.

(Plus, I'm already tormenting him in "Party City: Midgar," so I figured it was Jenova's turn to suffer.)

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy. Please review.

Warning: Slightly sappy, very odd, occasionally verging on the ludicrous.

Pairings: Tifa/Cloud, Tseng/Elena, Reno/vodka, Rude/sunglasses, Jenova/headache

Disclaimer: Cloud, Tifa, Denzel, Jenova, Sephiroth, Kadaj, Loz, Yazoo, and all other associated characters and concepts are property of Squaresoft Inc. and not me. I'm not making any money off of this; it's written purely for entertainment value, and not to be sold in any form. Please don't sue me. Neither do I own Teflon (tm), which is a really nifty product.

And remember: Sephy-clones love their mummy!

* * *

**SINGLE MOTHER OF THREE**

_by Morrigan, the Nightmare Queen_

* * *

Two voices, speaking in the swirling world of the Lifestream. We do not know them, and we are not priveleged to behold the world they now inhabit, but we can still hear their words. They are concerned, for a problem has become more dire of late . . .

"Sephiroth has already gone back to his true mother. Lucrecia has moved on."

"But what about the other three? The lost ones?"

"They were born of a madman's lust for power. Let him have them."

"Eternity with _him? _Torture far beyond what they deserve, surely. Aeris has been kind to them, and her favor holds some high regard. What does she say?"

Another presence joins them now: a high, clear voice, the sort that might be accompanied by a friendly hug or a mischievous smile. But despite its youth, the girl who owns this voice is wise beyond her years, and should not be overlooked or underestimated.

"I say: give them what they want."

"A mother?" one of the first voices says.

"_Their _mother."

"But Lucrecia has-"

"Not Lucrecia. They would neither know nor love her. Give them the mother they wanted."

"You can't be serious. The Calamity from the Skies? The destroyer of our race and enemy of the Planet? Give her the kind of power that those three possess?"

"And you don't understand," the young girl says, a hint of sharpness edging into her tone. "With the loss of her last remaining cells, Jenova is truly dead. She is in our power for the first time in a thousand years. Someday, Sephiroth may learn something other than hate . . . can we give his tormentor the same chance?"

"Redemption? Jenova? It's original, to say the least. But what about the three- and how-"

"Send them back to the Planet. Give them human forms, and let their souls figure things out for themselves. If they love her as a mother . . . maybe she can learn to love them as sons."

"Oh, this should be good."

"_You_ be quiet, Zack. What are you doing in a Cetra council, anyway?"

Far off, a door slams. A rough tenor interrupts the conversation, and he means for it to stay interrupted. "I was bored, so I thought I'd drop by to see you, gorgeous."

"Weren't you watching over Cloud today? It's the anniversary of Meteor-" the girl begins.

"I never thought I'd say this- but he was more interesting when he was depressed. I'm a military man, Aeris. A guy can only take so much of this Happy Families stuff."

"Oh, Zack . . . "

"What? I'm serious! Even in our barracks, you didn't watch while your buddy had some quality time with his girl. Even one stacked like Tifa. There are standards, ya know."

"Standards? You seem to have picked up a new hobby, Zack. I didn't know you had any."

"Oooh, you wound me! C'mere, and I'll show you exactly how many standards I don't have-"

"Not here! Zack!"

A sigh from one of the first voices. " . . . honestly. Could you two take it outside?"

* * *

**The 7th Heaven, Midgar . . .**

The alarm clock on the bedside table buzzed arthritically, then gave out a squawk and died. Tifa Lockheart rolled over, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and thumped the surface of the clock with one fist; the clock rattled apologetically, but refused to reactivate. With a wide yawn, the brunette martial artist kicked away the woollen plaid blanket and stretched, pulling the kinks out of her muscles. A new day. It was six AM and she had two hours until the bar opened; plenty of time to rouse everybody, make breakfast, and make sure that Denzel got off to school on time.

Lazily drooping brown eyes snapped open. The other half of the bed was empty.

For a moment, Tifa panicked- _he's not gone again, is he?- _but that instant of worry was quickly dispelled. A smoky haze hung in the air, along with the aroma of inexpertly fried bacon. She knew Denzel must be still asleep, because Cloud would never use that kind of language if he thought the boy was listening.

Cloud was a wonderful man. After years of anguish, his heart had finally begun to heal; the confrontation with the three Sephiroth clones and with their "big brother" himself had brought the blonde face-to-face with his demons, and he had conquered them. Only a few months ago, Tifa had summoned up the courage to kiss him- and she had been very surprised to find him kissing her back. Denzel had been adopted into the small household above the 7th Heaven, and all of AVALANCHE had chipped in to turn part of the old church into a permanent home for the orphans. Cloud had been through hell and back, and he was a hero ten times over.

That didn't mean he knew how to cook.

Tifa quickly leapt out of bed and threw a robe on over her loose sleep shirt. Slippers and socks were ignored in the fighter's haste to get downstairs before something _really_ catastrophic happened. A bar and a delivery service together made good money, more than enough to live comfortably on, but she didn't want to have to get the stove repaired. Cloud had guilted around the place for a week _last_ time.

Hurrying into the kitchen, Tifa was met with a peculiar sight. Cloud, already fully dressed, was swatting frantically at a frying pan currently emitting the smoke of successfully charbroiled bacon. On another burner, the stick-resistant powers of Teflon were being challenged as eggs a la Strife cooled into a rubbery mess. The coffee pot, on the other hand, was pristine and untouched: on a weeks-long quest with little or no proper rest, even ex-SOLDIERs learned that it was Percolate or Die.

"Cloud!" Tifa exclaimed, grinning despite herself. "You made breakfast!"

The blonde whirled around, nearly dropping the smoking pan on his foot. "Uh- yeah," he said, attempting to shrug nonchalantly and juggle a large amount of hot metal and grease at the same time. "I tried, but the eggs started curling up and the bacon sort of-"

Tifa cut him off with a kiss. "It's the thought that counts," she said, running a hand through Cloud's spiky hair. "I'm just glad you're up, that's all."

The blonde raised an eyebrow in an eerily Vincent-like manner as he slid one arm around Tifa's waist. "Is that so?"

"Ack- lemme go, silly!"

"Say the magic word."

"What, 'please?'"

"That's not today's magic word."

"Cloud- you know I'm ticklish- aaack- Cloud!"

"What's the magic word?"

Tifa sighed and rolled her eyes, having been unsuccessful in her attempts to get loose from Cloud's affectionate bear-hug. "Fine. Who am I today?"

"You are . . . hmmm . . . you're Yuffie."

"Oh, easy. Yuffie's magic word is _materia."_

Cloud grinned, loosening his embrace. "You're free to go."

"Actually," Tifa retorted, leaning back against him, "I think I'll stay here for a while. And I'm not going anywhere until you give _me _a magic word, and it better be good, buster- or I'm not making cinnamon rolls."

"Curses! Foiled again!"

"Again? We do this every day!"

"Well," Cloud replied, planting a kiss on her nose, "Sometimes you have to do something over and over again to get it right. Like that Materia Keeper? What a nightmare. I'd swear we tackled that thing fifty times." He nudged her. "You, however, I'll deal with for nothing."

Tifa laughed and gave him a poke in the ribs. Yelping, the ex-SOLDIER tightened his hold on her again, which made her retaliate with a mock-punch to the jaw. Cloud pretended to swoon, and the two of them somehow wound up on the kitchen floor together . . .

"Hey, get a room, guys!"

Frying in the sheer embarrassment, Tifa scrambled to her feet under Yuffie's disgusted-yet-fascinated gaze. Cloud followed her a second later, covering up his chagrin by scraping the remnants of the bacon out of the thoroughly blackened pan. The ninja, resplendent in an eighty-year-old cherry-blossom silk kimono and fuzzy moogle slippers, yawned hugely and fixed the reddening pair with the critical air of the nineteen-year-old catching her parents cuddling.

"Is this what you guys always do?" Yuffie said accusingly, stifling a second yawn. "'cuz if I'd known I'd get dinner _and _a show, I'd've brought my camera. What'd you do, forget we were here or something? Barret snores."

"I slipped-" Tifa began, and stopped. She _had_ forgotten. The ninja winked hugely and tiptoed past them towards the pantry, snaring a box of cookies that had been hidden behind the pasta and shoving three into her mouth. On her way back with the box, she nudged Tifa in the ribs and winked again, doing a quick one-woman pantomime of a dramatic faint and the accompanying smooches. Cloud groaned and covered his eyes with his hands.

"Yuffie, I thought part of being a princess was being _polite . . . ?"_

"Yeh, thahh whuh Vhinnhi's hulwhayh abouhh," Yuffie slurred through a mouthful of Double Chocolate Fudge Chip. "Hehh ahh bahd ahh Dahhd umthimeth-"

Cloud blinked. "Was that a language?"

"It was Yuffese, I think," Tifa replied, gently shooing the errant ninja and the swordsman away from the stove. "But you two had better keep out of the way if those cinnamon rolls are going to be ready any time soon. Yuffie, don't bother Cloud too much, all right? Cloud, please don't kill Yuffie. If that's possible."

"I'll go wake up Denzel," Cloud said pointedly, stepping around the messily chewing shinobi. "Some kids around here actually go to school, you know."

Yuffie's reply was thankfully illegible due to the cookies, but suffice to say that it expressed a very definite opinion about being classed as a "kid." Cloud restrained the impulse to point out that no matter how old Yuffie would get, she would always be younger than _him, _and would therefore be a kid all her life. He knew what kind of an answer he'd get to that. Instead, Cloud climbed the stairs to the second floor and turned left, heading down the corridor where the guest rooms were.

Cloud didn't need his SOLDIER training to know which of the visiting family friends had picked which room. Barret was the easiest- the gun-armed man's titanic snores were audible from several rooms away, and there was usually a sailor suit hanging on the door. (A man has to have hobbies, after all.) Marlene insisted on sleeping in Denzel's room, and Red XIII would curl up any place that wasn't currently inhabited by someone who annoyed him, which explained why a fire-tipped tail was protruding from the linen closet. For the sake of decency, and to keep Cloud from being deafened by Lord Godo, Yuffie had been given one of the two remaining rooms: this had left Vincent and Cid to uneasily share the last space left and to fight over who would have to sleep on the convertible sofa.

After a prolongued argument and one night of uneasy rest, Cid had graciously surrendered all rights to the room and had moved the sofa into the storeroom behind the bar. Some people sleepwalk in their dreams. Some kick. Some transform into hideous creatures beyond the knowledge of mortal men. Cid had decided to go the gentlemanly route and keep all of his limbs intact.

* * *

Meanwhile, fourteen miles away, a small meteorite crashlanded in the backyard of an abandoned cottage. Someone said "Oh, _aghraooa!", _which- if you happen to be a Calamity from the Skies- is a very naughty thing to say indeed. 


	2. Moms and Meteorites

Author's note: Chapter two is here! Thanks to everybody who reviewed, and thanks also to Splintered Star, who came over from GAFF to help me out. You're all fantastic!

And yes, SS, somebody's cat _is _going to get set on fire. Not in this chapter, though.

Writing Jenova's species is always difficult for me; I have to be careful not to make her a stereotypical alien or just a bitch with powers. I hope everything came out all right in this chapter. If there's a gaping plothole or something, please review or e-mail me and let me know, and I'll fix it as soon as I can.

Johnson & Johnson is a company which makes baby shampoos, powders, lotions, and other hypoallergenic products for sensitive skin. They actually work really well, so please don't sue them.

Remember, please: this is pretty much a crackfic. I do my best, but Jenova doesn't really HAVE a character in the game. Also, being purely manifested in a physical body is kind of wearing on her, hence the babbling and the cheese sandwich reference.

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Cloud, Tifa, Denzel, Jenova, Sephiroth, Kadaj, Loz, Yazoo, and all other associated characters and concepts are property of Squaresoft Inc. and not me. I'm not making any money off of this; it's written purely for entertainment value, and not to be sold in any form. Please don't sue me. I still don't own Teflon (tm), either.

* * *

Unbeknownst to many people, Choco Bill had once attempted to establish a small chocobo-taxi service for the citizens of Midgar. With the advent of Mako power, the tiny stable had failed, and the breeder had cut his losses and moved his operation to its present location, where it throve mightily. In time, Choco Bill married and had a son, whose son in his turn became known as Choco Billy; the new family stable outside Kalm was a great success, and grandfather and grandson gained a reputation for their skill with chocobos. (Choco Bill's son, a chartered accountant named Reginald, had left the business after a Fine Gold attempted to mate with his new car.) The old farm buildings, abandoned and overgrown with weeds, still lay on the outskirts of Midgar proper- uninhabited and forgotten.

Until, one gloomy gray morning, a meteorite came rocketing out of the sky and landed in the back yard of the abandoned cottage. A voice cursed, and the seven-foot sphere of rock split open, spilling out four groaning figures- a woman and three men, all very alike.

It would do an onlooker good to examine the woman as she lay in the grass, occasionally uttering another stifled profanity, for it is by her that this saga hangs. She was fairly tall and lean, with the kind of medium-curvaceous form that always seemed to turn up on the totally unattainable girl-next-door, and shaggy bone-colored hair of shoulder length. At first glance it merely looked like she had been overdoing it on the skin cream, but a further examination (if you cared to look) would show that she was not white at all, but a sort of sickly bluish-gray. Splotches of light purple were spread across her arms and torso, and her eyes- when they snapped open to stare painfully at the sun- were bright red. She had no pupils, and wore a grand total of nothing. It should be noted that this didn't seem to bother her.

"(WORDS CENSORED, AS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THESE SOUNDS OF THE DAMNED WOULD MAKE YOUR EYEBALLS EXPLODE)!" she screamed, thrashing against the overgrown grass as if its touch was scorching her in some very uncomfortable places. She staggered to her feet and slapped at her body, trying to scour away the invasive presence of the living Earth itself, or maybe a couple of chiggers. "(CENSORED,) (ALSO CENSORED) and (DEFINITELY CENSORED, AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THINKING SUCH THINGS), and the chocobo she rode in on!"

The sound of the woman's cursing brought the three sprawled men back to consciousness.

"Eh . . . " one of them grumbled in a deep baritone, wiping his face with one large hand. "I don't want to get up yet . . . "

"You're always whining . . . " groaned another one, more slender and having a long, foxlike face. " . . . and I bet you're crying too. . . "

The third rolled over in the dirt, flopping a bit like a dead fish. His shoulder-length gray hair fell across his face, and he seemed to be in a trance. "Niisan," he mumbled. "Niisan, niisan, niisan, niisan, let's all go home together, niisan . . . "

The woman stamped on the ground and glowered at the three men. "Get up, you fools!" she shouted. "We've been _reincarnated!"_

Eyes snapped open on three different faces. The largest of the men rolled over, heaving onto his stomach and raising his head with an expression of utter worship plastered across his features. "K-k-kaasan?" he gulped.

At that word, the other two men jerked as if significant appendages had been jammed into a toaster set on Medium Crispy. The shorter and longer-haired of the two leapt to his feet instantly, while the taller one slowly rose and stared at the woman, flabbergasted.

"MOMMY!"

The silence was broken by the largest man, who hurled himself forward like a thunderbolt and grabbed the woman around the waist. "Mama, mama, mama!" he gulped, tears streaming down his broad face while the woman yelped and swatted frantically at his spiky head. "Mommy, it's really really you! We found you! We thought you were dead but Kadaj said we should steal the box with your cells in it so we did but niisan sliced it open and big brother Sephiroth came back and niisan killed him and Kadaj and Yazoo an' me tried to kill him but we heard a voice and I thought we were going to DIE and then we woke up!"

"Get away from me, you worm!" the woman roared, slapping him firmly in the face. The man fell backwards onto his butt and stared up at her with a tear-streaked face. Growling, the woman whirled on her heel and glared up at the sky. "Never!" she shouted up at the distant clouds. "You cannot force me to do this, Cetra! You have not the power!"

A warm breeze skimmed over the grass and made the white hair of the four rustle and sway. The blue woman snarled in her strange, guttural language and deliberately dug one clawed foot into the soil, ripping up the grass by the roots. The breeze slapped at her face, and with it came a voice.

_They are your sons, Jenova, _the voice said calmly. _Your responsibility. They already love you. Learn to love them as a mother should, and we will see if you can be redeemed._

"I REFUSE!" Jenova shrieked. "Do you hear me, Cetra fool? I refuse! Inferior though this body is, I shall take this world and crush it once more! You have only unleashed me upon it once again!"

Now there was a tinge of amusement in the movement of the wind. _If you believe that, oyster-face, then you're even dumber than you look. And so's your dad._

_Zack!_

_Sorry, babe. Couldn't resist._

"The SOLDIER," Jenova hissed. She bared sharper-than-usual teeth in a fiendish grimace of a smile. "When I have this planet between my hands, and the Lifestream bows to me again, I will crush you like an ant!"

_Whoops, I did it again. Uh, Aeris, for a second there I almost gave a damn._

_Oh, you poor dear. I can kiss it better later. Jenova? _The alien bared her teeth again in reply. _Every week, we will set you a task. When you have accomplished each task, your soul will be a little cleaner for it._

"And if I refuse to do these tasks, scum?" the woman snarled.

The wind danced and played among the chunks of sod her feet had uprooted. _It is in your best interests, so I hope you won't. But we will make you a bargain: complete eight of these tasks, and we will return your power to you._

"I see," Jenova muttered sourly. The pupiless red eyes glinted beneath the shock of white hair. She strode forward, addressing the air, still ignoring the frightened brothers who cowered nearby. "And you think that if I complete these fabled tasks of yours, then I will not want the power when it is offered? I will become . . . _clean?" _She laughed, a hideous hissing sound like a snake being boiled alive. "I accept your offer, Cetra! Your planet will burn in a month or less, and I'll thank you for it!"

_If it happens, so be it. _The voice on the wind was still musical and unruffled, and it set Jenova's teeth on edge. _Are you ready for your first task, you who are now a mother of three sons?_

Jenova flexed her long blue-white fingers. "Even in this body, there is little I cannot defeat, Cetra. Set me this task, and I . . . and my . . . _sons . . . " _Loz made a happy squeak, a sort of cross between a gulp and a shriek, but Jenova hissed at him and he flinched backwards. "Yes, I and my sons, we will take it!"

_Fine. Get cleaning._

Jenova blinked. "What?"

There was a rushing noise, and four buckets materialized out of thin air, crashing to the ground beside her. It was followed a moment later by a mop, two brooms, a basket of rags, and several bottles of brightly-colored cleaning fluid._We have arranged that you will lease this farm from its current owner, Choco Bill. Your landlord will arrive in three hours, and unless he's satisfied that you're holding up your end of the bargain and keeping everything shipshape, you're going to be out on your alien rear end. So get cleaning._

There was no answer, just a wordless roar of rage.

"What kind of task is this?" Kadaj demanded haughtily, stepping forward a little and addressing the sky.

_Your first task is humility. _There was a ripple of laughter in the breeze around them. _So get moving. And by the way, the rent on the buildings is thirty thousand gil per fortnight. I hear McMoogle's is hiring . . . _

* * *

**Meanwhile, at the 7th Heaven-**

There was quite a crowd around the table, now that Cloud had finally let Tifa go long enough for her to serve a breakfast that wasn't mostly charcoal briquettes. Barret was there, of course, looking a little uncomfortable in a chair that was just a bit too small for him but still pleased as punch and every inch the proud father. Marlene sat next to her huge papa, giggling a little and leaning in for a hug or a ruffle of the hair from the gun-armed man. Denzel was on her other side, sandwiched between Marlene and Tifa, also chattering away a mile a minute about school, his friends, and some science project which Cloud and Tifa had apparently promised to help him with. Tifa herself, between Cloud stealing kisses at every opportunity and the need to regulate the disorder of the conversation with the sharp mother hen instinct of every born bartender, had barely had a chance to eat a bite.

On the other side of the long table, a still sleepy Yuffie was aiming verbal jabs at Vincent, who was taking it as stoically as usual. The gunman was probably the biggest oddity at the table that morning; not long after the clones' attack, he had been forced to confront his own inner demons in a quite literal sense, and it seemed to have exorcised him somewhat. Since then, he had accepted a position as the new Weapons Master of the Pagoda of the Gods in Wutai, and had been unofficially assigned as the bodyguard of a certain rogue princess. Yuffie had intensely resented her father's implication that she couldn't take care of herself, and was getting revenge with her usual sledgehammer subtlety. Cid, who was sitting on the other side of Vincent and looking as if he hadn't slept well at all, had once been heard speculating about whether Vincent was treating the shinobi as part of his penance. Yuffie had smacked him one for that.

Red XIII was unable to use cutlery, but Tifa had found a wide stool that he could perch on with relative ease. "I don't care if he's a lion or not, he's a friend of the family and friends don't eat off the floor," she had pronounced. Interestingly enough, the dignified creature had better table manners than most of the AVALANCHE contingent, although Barret and Cid's tabasco-sauce-endurance contests had been forcibly halted when Tifa had warned them about Being a Bad Influence. (Reno and Rude had been banned from dinner invitations altogether after one simple bout of burping had evolved into a food fight of epic proportions.) Cait Sith wasn't present, being currently deactivated; Reeve might occasionally drop by the bar, but his work at Shinra tended to bury him in paperwork more often than not.

So there they were around the table: AVALANCHE. Conversations, insults, and occasional flipped bits of scrambled egg flew around the room like lightning, just as they always had. A few years ago, it had been a campfire instead of a breakfast table, but things were still pretty much the same. Granted, Cloud was now reading the newspaper rather than sharpening his sword, and Vincent would occasionally contribute to the conversation of his own free will nowadays, but they still hadn't lost their old camaraderie.

"Hey, Tif, look at this." Cloud pushed the _Edge City Herald _towards his partner in crime. Tifa picked up the paper and scanned the article that Cloud had indicated, squinting a little at the smeary print.

"'A small meteorite of unknown origins has reportedly landed in the backyard of 144 Stable Hill, a former chocobo ranch,'" she read aloud. "'A report issued by Dr. Z. Chary of the Edge City Health Committee has confirmed that the meteor is in fact non-radioactive and has not caused any damage to either persons or property in the area. The farmyard has been leased for the first time in over three decades by Ms. Shan Neveau, who could not be reached for comment.' Huh." Folding the paper up, she handed it back. "Something pique your interest about that?"

"Just that we don't get many meteorites these days," Cloud replied, shrugging, "And Denzel has that science project on astrological bodies-"

The swordsman's words were cut off by a shout from the boy in question. "Can we go see it, Cloud? Please?" Denzel exclaimed, eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Pleasepleasepleaseplease?"

"Hold on," Tifa interjected. "If it's in the paper, every kid in his class is going to know about it. Won't they all be there?"

"Possibly. But how many of those kids will be able to take a chunk of it home with them?" Cloud pointed out with a grin. His eyes flicked ever so slightly to the Ultima Weapon, which was leaning on the bar. "Not radioactive, the doctor said. What do you say, Tif?"

Tifa was about to make another objection, but the twin weapons of Denzel's pleading stare and Cloud's hundred-watt smile were too much for her. It was still such a pleasant surprise to see him happy . . . "Oh, all right," she groaned in mock-pain. "I'm sure there'll be a lot of people there to stare at it, we sure won't be intruding . . . what do you say, Denzel? Field trip to the meteorite?"

"Can I come too?" Marlene interrupted, bouncing excitedly in her chair. "Daddy, can I go see the meteorite with Cloud an' Tifa an' Denzel? Can I?"

"If Tif' and Spiky say it's all right, you go ahead," the one-armed man rumbled indulgently. Now it was Marlene who was employing the pleading stare, and if anyone thought Denzel's was persuasive, they were certainly surprised. The boy had learned from the master: widened eyes, slightly quivering lower lip, and just a hint of sniffle. It was the kind of attack that came with a guaranteed success rate, especially against the intensely sentimental Tifa.

"Cloud?" Tifa said a little helplessly.

"I don't mind," was the reply. "We'll have to take the buggy, though. I don't think we can fit four of us on my bike."

"Hey, if you're taking the buggy, I'm coming too!" Yuffie piped up. "The chimney over there once told me that meteors an' stuff have a bunch of valuable mineral watchamacallits in 'em." At Cloud's audible groan, she shook her fork in a threatening manner. "And don't you even think about stoppin' me! Try, and I'll hijack the bike and follow you!"

" . . . Vincent, do you think you could handle that?" Cloud said.

"If she goes with you, I can keep an eye on her," the stoic gunman responded. Cid nearly choked on his eggs and muttered something extremely impolite. Without taking his eyes off of Cloud or moving a single muscle in his face, Vincent used his human hand to give Cid a resounding smack upside the head, making the pilot inhale egg and go off into a coughing fit. Yuffie grinned hugely.

"Yeah, he can handle it," she commented.

"Goddammit, Yuffie! You been doing something to that jackass's head?" Cid coughed. Yuffie jammed a fist into her mouth to stifle her giggles, and Vincent merely raised an eyebrow and returned to his bacon. Cloud shot a glance at Tifa, who shrugged and gave him a look which said _I haven't the faintest, either._

* * *

Time passed, and out at the distant farm, one Jenova and three Jenova-spawn were learning that cleanliness was, indeed, next to godliness. No wonder the lye soap seemed to hate them.

Jenova was on her hands and knees, scrubbing at the stone floor of the kitchen. Her knuckles were red and raw where she had scraped them on the rough surface, and the powerful chemical soap certainly wasn't helping the situation. The white hair, something she had always been proud of, was now dirty and streaked with cobwebs from investigating the spider-infested cupboards in the tiny bedrooms. Even the furniture seemed to have a grudge against their new owners; Yazoo had been brained by a wardrobe which had somehow managed to lean itself against the other side of a closed door.

As she scrubbed, she cursed. She cursed the Cetra, who had dared to presume to dictate to her. She cursed the Cetra's mercenaries, both the annoying dark-haired dead porcupine and the annoying blonde-headed live porcupine. She cursed whoever first had the bright idea of doing this whole "son" thing. (It couldn't be her. She was far too intelligent and majestic to submit to such a foolish thing. Definitely not her.) And most of all, she cursed Messrs. Johnson and Johnson. _Painless and odorless? _Hah!

"Kaasan!"

Add an additional curse for every brainless silver-haired twit in existence.

"Kaasan, the water . . . "

Jenova leapt to her feet and whirled around, striking out with one scraped hand. Kadaj whimpered and reeled back at the resounding **SMACK. **A bright red handprint appeared on his face, making the man clutch at it and wince.

"I am not your mother, you brainless ape! You are the failed spawn of my failed spawn, a ridiculous travesty that should never dare to call itself my flesh!" The Calamity from the Skies emphasized each word with a blow from a half-empty bottle of liquid furniture polish. "I will not be toyed with! I am Jenova, the destroyer of the Cetra! I will be obeyed! I will have order! I will have perfection! And _so help me gods, _I will beat your brains out with a shovel and a cheese sandwich if necessary if you _ever call me mother again!"_

"S-sorry," Kadaj whimpered. The bottle of polish hadn't actually connected many times; Jenova's aim was pretty bad, and as she had grown more hysterical with each word, most of the blows had gone wild. However, he had a pretty good idea that it wasn't wise to point that out to her. She was still mother, after all. "Um . . . kaa—um . . . mistress, there's some trouble." He fished around at his feet and picked up a bucket of what looked like dirty water. "This trouble."

"What, you can't be bothered to fetch fresh water?" Jenova glowered at him, furniture polish raised and ready. "By the way, yes, 'mistress' is acceptable. Good toadying."

"Thank you, mistress. But yes, the water is fresh. That's the problem."

Jenova eyed the water. "Human standards are ridiculous. That is _not_ fresh."

"It is," Kadaj repeated. "Look." He reached out and stuck a finger into Jenova's bucket of soapy water. The liquid swirled, bubbled, and turned black. "Um . . . they all do that," he continued, wincing a little. "Loz and Yazoo have the same problem. We can't . . . uh . . . turn it off."

"What?" The blue alien put her hands on her hips and turned up the glare a few notches. "You mean to tell me that you are casting my corrupting influence, the ultimate power of my blood fed into the essence of perverted Lifestream, meant to force the pathetic meat-humans to submit to my will—and all this you are casting on my cleaning products? And now you tell me that you can't stop?"

"Um . . . yeah."

Several busy seconds passed. Once again, we find it difficult to describe exactly what happened, but it is possible that tentacles spontaneously burst out of a blue woman's back and that a silver-haired man shrieked like a silver-haired little girl and ran for his life. It is also possible that the man's boot may have struck the bucket of black water, sending it splashing all over the blue woman and causing the black magic equivalent of dropping a toaster in a full bathtub. Neural feedbacks are _nasty._

It is also possible that the landlord was just pulling into the barnyard.


End file.
